She handed the reins of both horses to the stable boy who had come to retrieve them and headed for the closest guard, who drew his sword as he saw her approaching. There was something she needed to do.
“Unarmed,” she said by way of greeting, cocking her head and lifting her hands, palms outward.
The guard didn’t seem convinced. Gandrett recognized him to be the mountain of a man she had put on his back that first day in Ackwood. A grin broke onto her features. “Sorry for last time.”
He gave her a sour smile in response.
“Where can I find Brax?” she asked, one hand absently wandering to the silver and emerald pendant on her chest.
“In the gardens, Miss Brayton,” he said, not seeming certain he was doing the right thing giving her the information, and knowing that if he didn’t, she could easily make him.
His uncertainty seemed to grow as she thanked him and curtseyed before she strode through the gate that led to the gardens under the palace windows.
She found Brax sitting under a tree, back resting against the trunk, a book open on his knees. His black hair was moving in the warm breeze, the sun painting patterns on his pale skin through the branches above his head, and his black jacket was open, exposing the collar of a casual, white tunic. Gandrett stopped at the corner before stepping out of the shadow of the wall.
She didn’t think she had ever seen him in a different color than black. And his face… He looked so peaceful. A slight smile on his lips, one hand flipping the page every now and then while the other played with the grass beside his hip.
Her hand tightened around the necklace he had given her, and she pulled it over her head then weighed it in her palm.
Think of me when you wear it. She had thought of him many times during those days in Eedwood.
And now that she knew what his gift truly was, what it meant to him, it was time to give it back.
He looked up at the same moment she stepped out of the shadows, making herself walk as ladylike as she had learned with Mckenzie. And even though her clothes were dirty and sweaty and smelled like the miles they’d covered over the past days, she held her head high as he closed the book and jumped to his feet, a hand smoothing over his hair.
“What are you reading?” she called at him, and he tucked the book under his arm with a grin.
“You came back,” he said, not answering her question, already sauntering toward her, the slight arrogance he usually wore returning as if he was falling into a pattern.
Gandrett nodded, her own strides slowing as he approached her with sleek grace.
“Is he—” He stopped himself as if he was anxious to ask and even more afraid of the possible response.
“Joshua is back.” Gandrett nodded, and before she could brace herself, Brax’s arms were around her in a bone-crushing hug.
“You really did it,” he said into her hair. “You brought him back.”
Gandrett nodded again, unsure if Brax would even notice she was moving, so tightly was he holding her against his chest.
“Vala knows why she sent you here,” he murmured before he let go. “Thank you.”
His eyes were on the gate she had come from, probably searching for a sign of his brother—his half-brother as he would soon learn if he didn’t already know. But that wasn’t Gandrett’s story to tell.
“He’s with Mckenzie in the yard,” she said, expecting Brax to bolt that direction the moment she finished speaking.
But he remained where he was, his gaze returning to her face, eyes full of a different emotion. “You came back,” he repeated in awe as if that had been something impossible to consider. A miracle.
“I thought you believed I could do it,” she teased just to ease the tension.
Brax nodded. “I believed you could do it,” he said, his voice turning deliberate. “I just never thought you’d come back—long enough to say hello.”
Gandrett played with the silver chain in her palm, pondering whether it was the right thing to do, return it to him. She held his emerald gaze, new depth to his humorous eyes making her pause a moment longer than she cared to admit.
But as she lifted her hand between them, exposing what she had been clutching between her fingers, his shoulders slumped an inch.
“Had I known what this is, I would have never accepted it.” It had to be explanation enough.
But Brax shrugged and took her hand in his, tilting it from side to side, the sunlight igniting specks of emerald reflections on her fingers. Gandrett marveled, wordless, not just at the dancing green light but at the warmth of Brax’s palm under hers.
“It is mine to give to whoever I choose,” he said, no arrogance in his words but a tenderness that didn’t match the teasing young man she had gotten to know during her time in Ackwood. There was no trace of the shameless flirt who had made her cheeks flush or the chivalrous noble son who had escorted her through the halls of the palace day after day. It was Brax as she had spotted him reading, imperfect and vulnerable, and at peace.
His hand closed hers around the necklace and lingered until Gandrett tore her gaze away from his long, pale fingers, how they contrasted with her sun-kissed skin.
“Keep it.” His lips parted into a smile that was like the sun itself.
And he stepped past her, falling into a jog as he headed for the yard.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Gandrett’s old rooms looked exactly like they did when she had left them—including the bathing chamber, which was already prepared with steaming water as she made it there, her muscles exhausted from the days on horseback and the nights on the ground.
She closed the door behind her, slid out of her dirty, sweaty dress, and dropped the fabric where she stood, leaving a collapsing heap of midnight-blue streaked with dirt and half-washed-out stains of blood. Who knew when the next time would be that she would get hold of a tub like that? Most certainly not in her parents’ house, and even less than that at the priory in Everrun.
The water hugged her sore body like the touch of the goddess of water herself. A groan escaped Gandrett’s mouth as she dipped her hair in the water and started scrubbing at her head, watching the dirt float and slowly dissolve in the heat.
When she was done, she wrapped herself in a thick towel and studied the plain, functional dress that had been laid out for her on the bed next to her clean acolyte uniform.
“Take the dress. It suits you better,” Mckenzie said from the door, an apologetic look on her face. “They told me to come get you—and that you’re up here.”
Gandrett fixed the towel with her hands just in time as Mckenzie ran toward her, arms wide and face beaming. Words of gratitude rained down on Gandrett’s shoulder as Mckenzie squeezed her tightly. Gandrett waited in silence, so many thoughts filling her own mind that she didn’t have one single word to say in response.
But she mustered a smile.
Mckenzie waited in the hallway while Gandrett got dressed, and as they walked back to the great hall, Gandrett thought back on those first steps she had set into Ackwood Palace. The uncertainty, the fear of Nehelon, the hope of freedom, the pressure to prove herself.
Now she could walk up to the table where Lord Tyrem was lounging in the same chair as he had been in that first day, Lady Crystal to his right, and Joshua to his left, next to Brax, already deep in conversation with his parents. As she approached, they looked up, Lord Tyrem’s eyes rimmed with the red of recently-fallen tears, his features appearing younger as he glowed with joy.